Papyrus 12
Encyclopedia
Papyrus 12 α 1033 (in the Soden numbering), designated by siglum 12, is an early copy of the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

 in Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

. It is a papyrus
Papyrus
Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....

 manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

 of the Epistle to the Hebrews
Epistle to the Hebrews
The Epistle to the Hebrews is one of the books in the New Testament. Its author is not known.The primary purpose of the Letter to the Hebrews is to exhort Christians to persevere in the face of persecution. The central thought of the entire Epistle is the doctrine of the Person of Christ and his...

, it contains only Hebrews 1:1. The manuscript palaeographically
Palaeography
Palaeography, also spelt paleography is the study of ancient writing. Included in the discipline is the practice of deciphering, reading, and dating historical manuscripts, and the cultural context of writing, including the methods with which writing and books were produced, and the history of...

 has been assigned to ca. 285. It may have been a writing exercise or an amulet.

Description

On the top of the second column another writer has penned Hebrews 1:1 in three lines. It has been written in a small uncial hand. On the verso of this manuscript another writer has penned Genesis 1:1-5 according to Septuaginta.

Text
πολυμερως κ πολυ[τρο]πως
παλε ο θς λαλήσ[α]ς το[ις π]ατρα
σ[ι] ημ[ω]ν εν τοις προ[φηταις]


It has error of itacism (παλε instead of παλαι), the nomina sacra
Nomina sacra
Nomina sacra means "sacred names" in Latin, and can be used to refer to traditions of abbreviated writing of several frequently occurring divine names or titles in early Greek language Holy Scripture...

 contracted (θς).

The Greek text of this codex probably is a representative of the Alexandrian text-type
Alexandrian text-type
The Alexandrian text-type , associated with Alexandria, is one of several text-types used in New Testament textual criticism to describe and group the textual character of biblical manuscripts...

, but its text is too brief for certainty. Aland
Kurt Aland
Kurt Aland was a German Theologian and Professor of New Testament Research and Church History. He founded the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung in Münster and served as its first director for many years...

 placed it in Category I.

It supports textual variant with ημων as in codices 46c a
Codex Vercellensis
The title Codex Vercellensis refers to two manuscript codices preserved in the cathedral library of Vercelli, in the Piedmont Region, Italy.- Old Latin Codex Vercellensis :...

 t
Liber Comicus
Liber Comicus Toletanus Teplensis , designated by t or 56 , is the oldest known lectionary from the Iberian Peninsula, dated to somewhere between the 7th and 9th centuries....

 v vgmss
Vulgate
The Vulgate is a late 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It was largely the work of St. Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of the old Latin translations...

 syrp
Peshitta
The Peshitta is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition.The Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated into Syriac from the Hebrew, probably in the 2nd century AD...

.

History

The manuscript was discovered in 1897 by Grenfell and Hunt.

It is currently housed at The Morgan Library & Museum (Pap. Gr. 3; P. Amherst 3b) in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

Further reading

  • B. P. Grenfell
    Bernard Pyne Grenfell
    Bernard Pyne Grenfell was an English scientist and Egyptologist and a member of The Queen's College, Oxford.With his friend and colleague, Arthur Surridge Hunt, he took part in the archaeological dig of Oxyrhynchus and discovered many ancient manuscripts known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, including...

     & A. S. Hunt, The Amherst Papyri I, (London 1900), pp. 30-31. (P. Amherst 3 b).
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